The plan originally was ideally to let Calvinists write for Calvinism, and non-Calvinists write against Calvinism. So far, no writer to write in favor of Calvinism on this site has been found. Therefore, most material here refutes Calvinism.
1 Tim 2:1-6 indicates that limited atonement is false.
Refuting Calvinism
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; ... [God our Saviour] Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. - 1 Tim 2:1-6
Calvinism claims that God's pleasure is that the wicked are damned. This is directly contradicted by Ezekiel 33:11:
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Calvinism says if one person rejects salvation even though God provided atonement for that person, God failed. Is this true?
Refuting Calvinism
The precise goal of God was to make salvation available for all, not to force atonement / salvation on all. So in this case, Jesus did not fail, even if some reject the offer of salvation.
God's plan itself was to allow man the freedom to reject the offer.
Rom 10:21 refutes Calvinism / unconditional election.
Refuting Calvinism
But to Israel he says: “All day long I have stretched out My hands To a disobedient and contrary people.” - Rom 10:21
The attitude of God in this scripture is that God makes a genuine offer to people, who reject God. If even a single one of those people fail to eventually get saved, then this genuine offer was made to more than just the "elect."
If this one person does not get saved, but the offer was made to him, then this person could have gotten saved - otherwise the offer was not genuine.
And if so, man's choice is factored into the equation.
The point is not
"Are you making man's will more powerful than God?"
but rather,
"Are you making your ideology greater than God's plain statements in God's Word, and rejecting God's own Word?"
God has exalted his word higher than his name.
I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. - Psalm 138:2
Example:
Peter's opposition to Jesus' going to the cross, certainly was in line with the Calvinist opposition to the idea that man could choose to reject salvation. Both are justified by the claim of seeking God's glory.
In fact, Peter's act was even more so - this was not the rejection of God's offer that is being dealt with, but the death of God himself in the form of flesh!
The argument of Calvinism is that making man able to choose, makes man greater than God - however, men actually killed God when He was manifest in the flesh, which no Calvinist will want to deny (I hope). Did this death of Christ by men - by sinful men - demonstrate man's superiority over God?
If not, then neither does God's ordaining for men to be able to choose 1
demonstrate man's superiority over God.
One might argue,
Well, the crucifixion was part of God's plan.
The proper response to that is,
Man's choice of rejecting or accepting salvation was part of God's plan.
My sheep hear my voice, per Calvinism, refers to the (claimed) fact that unsaved (yet elect) will necessarily, on hearing the gospel, get saved.
Refuting Calvinism
Paul heard the gospel when Stephen was stoned. Paul was one of the elect, per Calvinism - even wrote the Calvinist proof text used for predestination of some sinners to salvation in Eph 1, and wrote Rom 9. Yet Paul did not get saved when he heard the gospel. This contradicts the claim, and invalidates and disproves the claim. (The method is proof by contradiction.)
Supporting Calvinism
Perhaps Paul was not ready when he heard the gospel the first time(s).
One motivation for accepting Calvinism is that it absolves one of all responsibility.
Refuting Calvinism
Trying to please God and failing, thinking it is difficult or well-nigh impossible (contrary to the words of Jesus that his yoke is easy) to serve God or please Him, people find it welcome and a relief to think that this is taken care of by God himself. They cannot fail to accomplish God's will in their lives, for God himself is going to make sure (or already has made sure) that His will is going to be accomplished in their own life, regardless of whether they try or not, and that nothing they do, or even can do, will thwart this realization of God's purpose.
Calvinism influences towards apathy, encouraging de facto such reasoning as, Why bother trying, if God's will is going to happen regardless?
There are 2 motivational fruits of Calvinism here:
the motivation to believe Calvinism is true, since its claims seem to absolve one of all responsibility (though Calvinism's claims are false)
the motivation to apathy, to do nothing good or for God, since Calvinism claims all efforts cannot change what is going to happen anyway
Western philosophy has provided much of contemporary western understanding of God.
Refuting Calvinism
A Professor teaching an Old Testament class claims students in the Old Testament class have preconceived notions of God that are at variance with what the Old Testament says about God, and that they got those ideas from western philosophy, rather than from the Bible. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkFJvEtI1WI
Calvinism's concepts are rooted in philosophy, not the Bible.
Refuting Calvinism
Augustine
The research of Augustinian expert, Kenneth Wilson (MD, MDiv, ThM, PhD), 1
one of the top scholars in the world on Augustine, shows that before Augustine (for the first few centuries of the church), Christian teachers taught free will, and none taught determinism. It also shows Augustine to have been ...
"... heavily influenced as a young man by participating in the three most highly deterministic systems that have ever existed—Gnostic Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, and Stoicism." - p. 94, The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism
From his 2019 book, THE FOUNDATION OF AUGUSTINIAN–CALVINISM, page 94: [emphasis added]
... Augustine was the only Christian bishop in history known to have been heavily influenced as a young man by participating in the three most highly deterministic systems that have ever existed—Gnostic Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, and Stoicism. Augustine's deterministic ideas did not come from the apostle Paul (a Pharisee who believed in free choice). Over fifty earlier Christian authors fought against those fated philosophies by teaching free choice. This new knowledge of how and why Augustine moved back into pagan determinism should greatly concern us. When these facts are combined with the knowledge that both Luther and Calvin mistakenly believed Augustine was merely teaching what all the earliest church fathers taught, Augustinian-Calvinism is exposed as built upon an unstable foundation of pagan sand.
Beginning with "God is sovereign" is not a Christian, but a Stoic foundation of philosophical theology. ...
1981 Doctorate in Medicine from The University of Texas Medical School;
1989–95 Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Oregon Health Sciences University;
2003 M.Div.;
2006 Th.M.;
2012 D.Phil. in Theology from the University of Oxford; thesis, “Augustine’s Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to ‘Non-free Free Will’: A Comprehensive Methodology.“
currently a
Board Certified Orthopaedic Hand Surgeon in Salem, Oregon
and
Professor of Church History and Systematic Theology at Grace School of Theology in The Woodlands, Texas
Here is Dr. Wilson interviewed by Leighton Flowers
